


we share, we care, we grow together

by Kasuchi



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, F/M, Gen, This is that 'Hey Arnold!' AU I've been talking about, also there's a lot of talk about outer space, that's because outer space is awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:22:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1965318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasuchi/pseuds/Kasuchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"Argh, you're one of those girls aren't you? All perfect and stuff?" Jake looked put-upon. "I bet you make perfect grades and you shower every day."</em> What if Brooklyn Nine-Nine was a little less Barney Miller and a little more Hey Arnold? A full-on cracky AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we share, we care, we grow together

**Author's Note:**

> Much love to my beta reader, **YankeeGirl28**. 
> 
> This is a **Hey Arnold!** style AU, meaning it's inspired by and something of a stylistic homage to Hey Arnold, but no one is a direct analogue nor are we stealing Hey Arnold plotlines. But everything is zany because everyone is ridiculous.

**1.**

Mr. Jeffords cleared his throat loudly, causing the room to quiet almost instantly, not that it had been particularly loud before. "Class, this is America Santiago, and she's just transferred to PS 99. Can we all say hello?" 

"Hi," the sea of faces intoned, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. 

"I go by Amy," she stated, rather prim for a nine-year-old. 

"Oh, okay, great. Well, Amy, let's seat you…" Mr. Jeffords surveyed the room. "Let's put you across from Jake." 

At the sound of his name, a boy with big, curly hair and large, brown eyes looked up from his book. "Sup," he said, greeting her, then returning to his book. 

"Are you reading _James and the Giant Peach?_ That's a great book." 

"Huh?" He shot her a look. "No, I'm reading Ninja Turtles comics. Don't ruin this for us."

Amy scrunched her nose in disapproval.

"I'm Charles," said the shorter boy beside Jake, their five desks pushed together to make an island. "What did you bring for lunch?"

"Uh, empanadas and maybe tres leches cake?" 

"Awesome," Charles said. "Rosa never brings leftovers." He tilted his head to the end of the table, where a tall, slim girl with riotous curls and a sour expression sat. She wore all black and combat boots that she propped up on her desk while blowing gum bubbles and scribbling on paper that she had braced against a folder in her lap. 

"And who sits next to me?" She gestured to the empty desk beside her. 

"Gina," Jake said, closing his book (and comic book). "She got a hall pass but I bet she went to play Kwazy Cupcakes in the bathroom." 

"Mr. Jeffords is pretty nice about that stuff, but Mr. Holt -- our afternoon teacher -- isn't," Charles explained.

"Ugh, I wish we still had Mr. McGinley." Jake rolled his eyes and sighed. "He let me do whatever I wanted. Remember when we had fire extinguisher races and told him it was a science experiment?" 

"That was awesome," Rosa offered, her voice surprisingly deep for a ten-year-old. 

"It's amazing you still get recess," Amy said, carefully putting her folders and pencil bag in her desk. Then, she pulled out a little box that revealed a set of perfect colored pencils and began creating her desk name tag, to match everyone else's. Jake's was green and each letter had a colored mask. Jake was clearly in it to win it with this Ninja Turtles obsession. 

"Argh, you're one of those girls aren't you? All perfect and stuff?" Jake looked put-upon. "I bet you make perfect grades and you shower every day."

"You _don't_ shower every day? Gross." Amy finished drawing her name tag, the letters A-M-Y overlaid on some simple but colorful daisies. Beside her, Gina's name was downright heraldic, with a wolf curled around the base of the G and a unicorn rampant braced on the A. Rosa's was a stark and simple spelling of her name, black letters on white paper. Charles had turned each letter into a vegetable. 

"Showers are for sissies," Jake declared. "So's math." 

"Is that why you're failing the fractions unit?" Rosa asked deadpan. A couple kids behind her snickered. 

"Fractions?" Amy's eyebrows rose. "At my old school, we did those in third grade."

"These are way harder," Charles said, nodding sagely. 

A red-headed girl slid into the chair next to Amy, wearing a sweater with BOOM printed all over it and hot pink pants with black hi-tops. (Amy already felt overwhelmed.) "Are you the new girl?" she asked bluntly.

"Uh, yes. I'm Amy." 

"Are you super smart?"

Amy felt taken aback. "Um, kind of? I skipped fourth grade."

"Whoaaaa," Charles intoned, mouth falling open into a perfect O. 

"Can I copy your homework?" The redhead continued, ignoring Charles.

"What? No!" 

"How about your tests?"

"That's cheating!" Amy pulled her papers over to the far side of her desk.

"Can I have this awesome eraser?" She held up Amy's prize Lisa Frank eraser, the only one her brothers hadn't gouged the eyes out of.

"How did you get that?!"

"I'm what they call _nimble_." Across the table, Jake rolled his eyes and continued pretending to read Roald Dahl. Charles pretended to work on his worksheet but surreptitiously kept letting out fawning sighs while doodling hearts in the margin of his worksheet. Oblivious, Rosa actually made steady progress through the grammar exercise. 

The redhead held out a hand, bringing Amy's attention back to her. "Gina Linetti. Enchan-tee"

"Don't you mean, 'enchante'? 'Cause it's French?"

Gina shrugged, hand still extended. "I've heard it both ways."

"Right." Amy shook Gina's hand tentatively. This new school was weird.

 **2**. 

Turned out, Jake liked to prank her. Of course, with seven brothers, Amy didn't scare easily.

"That can has a snake in it," she said, not bothering to look up from her math worksheet. He pouted and turned to Hitchcock and Scully, the kids who'd been held back from last year. 

"Plastic bugs in my lunchbox? Come on, Peralta." 

"Oh no, whatever will I do with this _super_ threatening rubber snake?"

"You chew first. No, I insist," Amy had said, arms crossed across her chest, while Jake grumbled and put the trick gum away. "Seriously, don't you have any better pranks? And don't try to put shaving cream in my cubby, 'cause I'll just tell and you'll never have recess again." 

"Argh, she keeps winning!" Jake threw his hands in the air and kicked at the gravel on the playground. He and Charles were in their usual spot, at the top of the geodesic dome made of steel triangles, surveying the playground and the jungle gym on the other side of the gravel pit. Behind them, the shouts of the kids on the swings rang out. Charles made a wistful sound -- the swings were taken early and for the entirety of recess if one didn't get there early enough, and Jake never wanted to swing -- and turned his attention back to Jake. 

"You'll have to find something else you can do, maybe." Charles paused, not sure how to broach this next subject. "Why do you want to beat her so much?"

"Because! She's so perfect, she gets good grades, Mr. Jeffords loves her because her worksheets are always so easy to read. She's the worst."

"Because she's the best?"

"Yes!" 

"That doesn't make any sense." 

"Your face doesn't make any sense," Jake grumbled, dropping through a triangle and into the middle of the dome. 

Across the playground, by the basketball courts, Amy and Gina played foursquare with two other kids. 

"Cherrybomb!" Gina shouted, smacking the ball into Amy's square super hard. The rubber ball bounced beyond Amy's reach into the "out" space, dethroning Amy from the kingbox. 

"I'm out," Amy sighed. Recess wasn't really holding her interest that day. The foursquare game had been interesting enough but she felt kind of listless. Maybe it was the weather. Mostly, she wished it was DEAR time already. 

Amy wandered over to where Rosa was, who was leaned up against the brick exterior of the school, behind one of the basketball hoops. "Hey," she said, then braced herself against the wall, surveying the playground. 

"Hey." Rosa replied, hands inside the pockets of her leather jacket. 

"Don't you have to change clothes for PE?" Amy blurted out, the question having been spinning in her mind for a while. 

"No." Rosa was silent for a long moment. "I'm exempt from PE." 

"Oh." 

They spent the rest of recess in companionable silence. When Mr. Holt blew the whistle for everyone to line up and come back inside, Rosa pushed off the wall and dusted off her pants. "Good talk," she stated, without the merest hint of irony in her voice. Amy nodded, unsure how else to respond, and followed. 

**3.**

Amy almost certainly had a crush on Mr. Holt. 

Jake, of course, mocked her mercilessly for it. "Someone's got a cru-ush," he teased her, in between bites of cafeteria nachos. 

"Shut up," Amy cried hotly, ignoring her pudding cup in favor of glaring at Jake. "He's just really nice, okay." 

"Uh-huh, suuuuure," Jake replied, clearly ignoring her. 

Gina got in on it too. "Is it the moustache? Or his suits? Or that deep monotone?" 

Amy turned bright red. "All of you suck," she muttered, leaning back in her chair and stirring her pudding determinedly. 

Rosa rolled a carrot stick over her knuckles. "Knock it off," she said, just loud enough to carry across the table, just as the lights in the cafeteria flashed. It was silent lunch time. Amy balled up her trash and walked over to the big trashcan. 

Later, in Mr. Holt's afternoon science class, Amy caught herself doodling hearts in the margins of her notebook. Disgusted with herself, she flipped the notebook over and continued taking notes on Mr. Holt's lecture about the solar system. Which was how she missed protesting when she and Jake were paired off on the science project. 

Jake beamed at her. Beside him, Charles smirked at Jake's back until Gina socked him in the arm and began dictating their project. (Apparently Gina didn't know the difference between astronomy and astrology.) 

Amy sighed and pulled out her planner. "Do you wanna come over Thursday? We can work on the booklet after school."

"Can I stay for dinner?" Jake had a mischievous look that Amy distrusted. 

"...Probably?" She said slowly, watching him. "But all of my brothers will be home, so I don't know if--" 

"Sounds awesome, I'm there." He replied. 

With a shake of her head, Amy blocked off Thursday night for her and Jake's project, then made a note to finish her other homework before then. 

Thursday came too soon, in Amy's opinion. As expected, Jake was insufferable.

"Hi, Mrs. Santiago," he chirped. "You're looking as beautiful as ever. Are you getting _younger_ somehow?" 

Her mom rolled her eyes and laughed. "Stop that, Jake. America mentioned you wanted to stay for dinner. Are _arepas_ okay?" 

"If it's made by your hands, it's more than okay." 

"I have seven sons," she said sternly, but her expression was wry. "Keep trying." 

Jake beamed at her. "Challenge accepted."

Amy rolled her eyes and dragged Jake up to her room. "Do you always have to butter up my mom like that when you see her?" 

"Hey, if she keeps making those empanadas, then we can't-stop-won't-stop."

"Ugh, quoting Miley Cyrus lyrics is worse somehow." She opened the door to her room, the nameplate reading AMY in swirling font with lace and ribbon in a spray around it. Inside, her room was decorated in maroons, pinks, and creams, with a large stuffed teddy bear Jake's size in one corner and a meticulously maintained Victorian-style dollhouse in the other corner. 

Jake dropped his bag haphazardly by the door to her room and sat with a thump at the foot of her bed, bouncing slightly on her mattress. Across from him was her desk, with a cork board above it covered in notes and photographs. The rest of the wall was papered with a multitude of certificates and ribbons that he scanned with interest. To the left was a large bookcase that went from floor to ceiling, crammed with books, awards, and keepsakes.

In the doorway, Amy frowned and righted Jake's bag, setting it to lean against the wall. She then smoothly took off her backpack and set it down in its usual place by her desk. She pulled out her chair and sat, leaning back in it and crossing her arms. 

"You have a lot of awards," he said, tone completely neutral.

It caught Amy off-guard, and she dropped her arms. "Thanks? My mom's a little hardcore about putting them all up.

"I like it." He shrugged. "Your room doesn't look like I expected."

She shot him a look. "What should my room look like?" 

"I dunno. Gina's got posters she made from magazines all over her walls."

Amy wrinkled her nose. "I'm not good at making collages," she said. "Look, we should talk about this science project."

"Yeah, yeah," Jake said, standing and rifling through her bookshelves. "You're super smart and stuff, right? Just tell me what to do and I'll do it." He pulled out her old yearbook. "Oh man, is this from your old school?" 

Three days later, Jake was back in her house, reading from the textbook while Amy took notes on her laptop. 

"'Jupiter's diameter is equal to eleven Earths. Jupiter's famous red spot is a massive atmospheric storm that is as wide as three Earths and has been going for hundreds, if not millions of years.' Can you imagine if a hurricane just raged for hundreds of years?"

"That sounds terrible. How many Earths was the red spot?"

Jake groaned. "Seriously, what is with you today? That's the third time I've had to repeat the reading. My voice is getting tired," he whined.

Amy sighed. "Sorry, I was up early for soccer." She spun in her chair to face him -- Jake once more perched at the edge of her bed -- and covered up a yawn.

"Is that why you're wearing the glasses?"

"Yeah, I didn't feel like wearing contacts today."

"Look, just switch seats with me. You can read from the textbook and I can type." At her skeptical look, he straightened. "I can type fast," he added defensively.

"Yeah, okay. I could use a break," she said, and got up. They switched positions, and Jake wiggled in her swivel chair. 

"Oh wow, your butt's really warm," he said, grinning.

"My butt's not weird! Your butt's the weird one!" She retorted immediately, touching her glasses.

"Haha, Amy's got a weird butt," her brother Jaime called as he passed by her door, spinning a basketball on a finger Amy felt herself turning red, embarrassed and angry.

"Don't be mad," Jake cut in, turning his back to her and clicking in the document. "It's nice."

"Oh," Amy said. Then, she shook her head. "Right, Jupiter. 'Jupiter's four primary moons were first documented with a telescope by Galileo Galilei. For this reason, these four moons are sometimes called the Galilean moons.'"

Two weeks later, Amy handed Jake a small booklet made of several sheets of computer paper folded in half and stapled in the center. 

"How long is this?" he said, flipping through it and skimming the paragraphs of text in her tidy handwriting.

"Eight pages single spaced," she mumbled.

"And double-sided." He grinned at her. "Santiago style. Nice." 

She rolled her eyes and fought back a grin. "Here, give it back for a sec." She put the booklet inside of a ziplock bag and then inside a hard plastic pencil box. "Ok there."

He shot her a look. "You're really intense, you know that?"

"Shut up, I've seen your cubby and your math homework. Trust me, I'm doing us both a favor."

The morning their project was due, Amy was a fidgeting mess. 

"I haven't seen it in a week, Mom!" She poked at her cereal with a spoon. 

Her mother shook her head. "That Jake is a good boy. Relax, _nena_ , and trust your partner." 

In homeroom, Amy accosted Jake as soon as he walked in. "Let me see it," she demanded.

"Good morning, Jake, how are you? Oh, I'm good, Amy, just running a bit behind because the bus was late this morning." 

Amy rolled her eyes. "Skip the small talk, I wanna see it." 

Jake groaned and set his backpack down, then shrugged out of his coat. Amy tapped her foot impatiently the entire time. He reached into his bag and pulled out the pencil box. 

She snatched it out of his hands and pulled out the plastic baggie and, into the air, their precious science project. She paused suddenly when she took in the cover. 

She had expected a bunch of Ninja Turtles-themed planets and sketches. Instead, the cover was a simple rendering of the solar system, with the title in block letters and their names written neatly across the bottom in capital letters. Inside, every page was full-color, with each planet rendered on the page opposite its information, including moons and rings. 

"Whoa," she said, and looked up at him. 

Jake looked suddenly shy. "I used colored pencils and everything, like you wanted," he mumbled. 

Later, when Mr. Holt returned their project to them with an A+ on the rubric and a sticky note attached to the front asking if he could keep theirs, they high-fived. 

(Across the room, Gina gave Boyle a noogie when their project came back with a B+ on the rubric, and had a note about how their 'inclusion of astrology as it related to astronomy was inspired'.)

**4.**

"You liiiiiiiike her, you think she's preeeeeetty." Charles teased, swinging from the bars of the dome.

"Shut up, Charles," Jake grumbled, surveying the playground. Across the way, Amy was on the swings, her ponytail streaming out behind her as she leaped off the swing at the peak of its arc, laughing as she landed with a _crunch_ in the gravel. "We're going on the swings tomorrow," Jake declared, watching as Amy laughed and ran back to her spot.

Unbeknownst to Jake, Charles's expression was simultaneously overjoyed and knowing. 

Two weeks later, after Jake had teased Amy all the way through lunch -- including the silent lunch part -- but they'd also pooled and split their lunches, Charles and Jake climbed to the top of the jungle gym and stood at what could only be called the prow. 

"What is going on with you two?" Charles asked, waggling his eyebrows obviously. 

Jake rolled his eyes. 

At lunch, Mr. Holt had organized a party for the fifth grade class celebrating Pi Day, complete with a homemade apple pie. 

"Class, we have some volunteers from the high school here to help us learn about pi," Mr. Holt announced. Beside him, Mr. Jeffords was quietly chatting with a handful of older kids. One had auburn hair and braces, and her green eyes were spaced wide in her face. "They'll be helping you calculate the volume of each of you pie slices. Be sure to ask them if you need assistance with the calculations." 

Rosa elbowed Jake, who spun his pencil between his fingers and grumbled. Amy was looking down at her coral Oshkosh overalls and frowning, while Gina was loudly proclaiming that Crust was the best pie in Brooklyn, which caught both Rosa's attention and ire.

"Wrong. Ignorant and wrong." Rosa folded her arms across her chest. 

"You think you can just bully people into doing what you want, but _I'm_ the bully around here. Ask anybody." 

"Maybe don't say that super loud around Mr. Jeffords?" Charles muttered. 

"The best pie is Argos Bakery, anyway. Recipe unchanged since 1906." The auburn-haired girl with braces was watching while Rosa and Gina bickered.

Charles turned a starry-eyed gaze to his left, up at the taller, older girl. "Yes, that's exactly what I was going to say!" 

The tall girl grinned. "I'm kind of a foodie." 

"Me too!" 

She beamed. "You're sweet. What's your name?" 

"Charles Boyle," he said proudly, smiling widely. 

"Vivian Ludley." She looked at the sheet in his hands. "You, uh, want help with your math?"

Over on the other side of the room, Jake groaned loudly and threw his pencil down on the tabletop. "Argh, when am I ever gonna use this anyway?!" He grumpily kicked the table leg and sat back in the cafeteria chair, clearly sulking. "Stupid math." 

Amy rolled her eyes eloquently and took Jake's paper. "You've got most of this. See, you're just missing the last couple steps." 

"Stupid multiplication," Jake grumbled, continuing to sulk. "Why do I have to know this when we have calculators? Can't I just Google the answer?" 

Amy shot him a flat look. "Uh-huh, right. What's _actually_ bothering you?" 

Jake sighed. "Nothing." 

"Okay, then let me get one of the middle schoolers to help." Amy made a show of raising her hand.

"Dustin Whitman was calling me stupid." Jake blurted out, not looking at Amy. "He called me Joke Peralta and said it was pathetic that I couldn't even add." 

"Oh." Amy blinked and looked at her hands. "Well, who cares what he thinks? What matters is what I think." She gave him a gentle shove in the shoulder, and he finally looked up at her. "You're super smart, Jake. You're great at word problems and you write the best stories of anyone." 

"And I have great taste in movies?" Jake asked, a mischievous light in his eyes. 

Amy rolled her eyes. "Fine, sure, whatever you want, Pineapples." 

"I regret telling you that." 

"I regret thinking we were having a moment." 

From two tables away, Mr. Holt allowed himself a small smile. "Partnering those two was a good move, Terry." 

Mr. Jeffords looked up from the homework assignments he was grading. "Thank you, sir." He smiled wryly. 

Mr. Holt continued. "Distracting her questions and his antics has worked in our favor." 

"I agree. And their projects are the best in the grade. Do you think we can talk them into entering the science fair together?" 

"We can certainly....try." 

Behind them, Gina and Rosa were arguing over whether hand pies and vegetable pies counted as pies. At the other table, Hitchcock and Scully were noting the pie piece volume was zero because they'd eaten theirs and so it no longer existed. (They were very proud of this life hack.)

**5.**

Jake strode into homeroom all smiles, high-fiving anyone whose palm looked even slightly ready for slapping. "Happy museum trip day, happy museum trip day, _happy museum trip day_." He finished and fell into his seat so gracelessly it looked graceful. Even Amy had to beam at him, seated across the table. Beside her elbow was a little brown paper bag labeled with her name in tidy block letters and a daisy underneath it. Gina kept eyeing it covetously. 

"You're in a good mood, Jacob," Mr. Holt said, looking at Jake over the rim of his glasses. 

"Duh," Jake said, ignoring Amy's horrified expression. "Museum field trip day is the _best_ day of the year. Dinosaurs, rocket ships, models of animals. It's so cool." 

"It's nice to see you getting so excited about science." 

"What? No, it's just fun. You're a grown-up, you wouldn't understand." Jake winced as Amy kicked him under their desks. 

As Mr. Holt and Mr. Jeffords explained how the groups would be split up and went over the schedule for the day, Charles sighed. "I just wish Vivi could be there." 

The rest of the table looked at Charles. "Vivi?" Gina asked, taking one for the team. 

"Yeah, Vivi. You know, Vivian? The redhead from pie day? She's my new babysitter. My mom loves her." 

"Isn't she like six years older than you? And a friend of your sister's?" 

"Yeah, my sister hates it," Charles replied, sighing dreamily. 

"Oooooh-kay there, buddy," Jake said slowly. 

Later, once they'd all filed onto the bus, their teachers sorted them. "Those of you on my group sit on this side of the bus, please," Mr. Holt rumbled, gesturing to the right-hand side. "Mr. Jeffords' group should sit on the left. Your seatmate will be your field trip partner." He paused. "Choose wisely." 

Amy slid into the seat next to Jake, setting her small backpack on the ground. "Guess we're partners." 

"I'm surprised you didn't pick Rosa," Jake admitted. 

She grinned. "I almost did, but Charles brought a pack of cards and a homemade Lunchables, so they're playing poker." She pointed to where they sat, a few seats up, just as Charles groaned and Rosa beamed, picking up her winnings.

"Ah, I'm second choice, huh?" Jake smirked.

Amy scoffed but her tone was teasing. "Please. You were at _best_ fifth on the list." 

The bus dropped them off at the base of the large stairs leading to the Teddy Roosevelt Memorial Hall. After Mr. Holt did a final headcount, he took Gina, Hitchcock, and his half of the class around the building to the planetarium so that they could make their show. Mr. Jeffords led them up the stairs and into the main hall. They were going to see the animals first. 

"Don't move as a group!" Mr. Jeffords cautioned, when the third group of German tourists strode past them. "You're not gazelles!" 

Jake pulled Amy to a pair of massive elephant figures and thrust his camera in her hands. "Take a picture!" he commanded, and posed. 

She shook her head. "Weirdo." But she took a few shots with and without flash. 

"Awesome," Jake said, flipping through the photos. "Hey, when do we get to go see the dinosaurs?" 

Amy looked at the schedule. "It's one floor up. We could go now."

"Heck yes." Jake turned around and shouted, "Mr. Jeffords, can Amy and I go check out the dinosaurs?" Behind him, Amy let out a put-upon sigh.

"Us, too," Rosa stated, hand fisting in Charles's t-shirt as she dragged him away from the diorama of Madagascar's lemur populations. 

Mr. Jeffords surveyed his best four students. "Gina's still with Mr. Holt, right?"

Amy nodded. "She's been eating bites of Hitchcock's lunch all morning, see?" She brandished her cell phone, where a series of emoji-laden text messages detailed Gina's museum adventures. "Apparently Hitchcock's mom's Tupperware choice hurts her fingers. She's already bruised a knuckle and chipped her manicure."

"Then it's fine. Meet us by the statue of Theodore Roosevelt at 12:30 for the class lunch." 

"Yes, Mr. Jeffords," the four of them chimed before dashing off. 

"Where did everyone go?" Scully asked, turning around from the sloths. 

At lunch, Scully shared his massive lunch with Hitchcock (they'd planned ahead, or at least Scully's dad had) while Gina enjoyed a Sloppy Jessica courtesy of the entirely too accommodating cafeteria staff. While Gina explained what exactly was in her sandwich to a horrified/amazed Mr. Jeffords and Charles, Jake nudged Amy in the side. "Whatcha got?" 

Amy unpacked her bag. "Umm. Empanadas and maybe some tres leches cake? Javier was in our cousin's court for her _quinceañera_ and came back with, like, half the dessert table from my aunt." 

Jake beamed. "Hey that's the same lunch you had on the first day." Jake dumped out his brown bag in a pile on the table, a saran-wrapped sandwich and pudding cup bouncing off of one another and narrowly avoiding a bag of off-brand Goldfish crackers. "Trade you half my sandwich for one of your mom's empanadas." 

"Deal." 

While they munched on their food, Jake kicked his legs against the table's center pole. "The dinosaurs were cool," he said, feeling lame as soon as the words were out. 

Amy, however, brightened. "Yeah! Did you see how big the teeth on the T-rex were?" 

"I wish there had been a Ducky-saur, though. You know, from _The Land Before Time_?"

"I love those movies. My brothers always make fun of me for liking them." Amy looked around and lowered her voice. "Javier and Miguel have watched the fourth one with me like six times though." 

Jake laughed. "Gina hates them. She thinks they're stupid and says we should watch _Cats Don't Dance_ instead because it's funnier." 

"I bet if there were unicorns or wolves, she'd watch them. She's stolen my Lisa Frank folder like six times now." 

"Sounds like Gina." 

After lunch, Mr. Holt and Mr. Jeffords did another headcount before once more splitting up. This time, Mr. Jeffords's group went to the planetarium while Mr. Holt's class went to the dinosaurs. Rosa and Charles got into a heated discussion about the best birthday parties, while Mr. Jeffords had to stop Scully from trying to lick the asteroid on display. 

"And then, _blammo!_ , candy everywhere. Piñatas are the best," Charles insisted. 

"I do like gratuitous violence." Rosa agreed, nodding slightly. They then moved to where Lohank was, Charles distracting him while Rosa pretended to be his shadow. 

Across the hall and up a flight of stairs, Amy was looking as a to-scale model of the Moon easily the same size as she. Tentatively, she reached out a hand and traced the Montes Apenninus with her fingers. 

"It's super weird, right?" 

She nodded, not looking at Jake, forefinger slipping into the dip that constituted the Conon crater. 

Jake walked to the other side of the model and ran a hand along the far side of the moon. "I feel like I should hum Pink Floyd or something," Jake muttered, pads of his fingers tingling as they skimmed over crater rims and valleys. 

"Nine-nine!" Mr. Jeffords called, waving everyone over to the far side. The 12 of them headed towards him, then filed into the planetarium's waiting area for their show time. 

"The best part was the elephants. No, the dinosaurs." Jake nodded decisively, waiting for the planetarium doors 

"We haven't done the planetarium yet, butthead." Amy raised an eyebrow and folded her arms.

Jake looked at her.

"What?" She asked, expression faltering.

"I just can't believe you'd call me a butthead. That's so harsh."

She rolled her eyes and hid a smile. "Shut up. And the best part was the whales." 

The usher finally opened the door and Mr. Jeffords led them to a row and instructed them to move all the way to the end and sit down. Jake and Amy ended up in the middle of the row, Charles to Jake's left and Rosa to Amy's right, with Lohank, Kearns, and Scully further out. 

Jake turned to his right. "Maybe this is a bad time to tell you that I think outer space is kind of terrifying?" Amy shot him a look. In front of them, a heavyset, college-aged kid with a close-cropped afro turned around and held out his fist. "You and me both, man," the guy said. Jake obligingly bumped his knuckles against the other guy. Mr. Jeffords then cleared his throat and glared threateningly at the guy until he turned around and sat back down. 

"It'll be okay," Amy said, trying to be reassuring. 

"Shh!" Rosa said sharply. 

The show started, a rotating disk that was clearly the Milky Way galaxy spinning slowly in the center while a disembodied voice narrated. As the images zoomed in and out, and the objects rotated and flew in and out of view, Jake felt his stomach drop out unexpectedly. Without thinking, he reached over and grabbed Amy's hand. Surprised, she looked at him. He shrugged slightly, a slight raise of one shoulder. Amy's expression softened, and she rotated her wrist so that their hands were palm-to-palm. When the CGI images of supernova rotated and shifted again, Jake squeezed her hand slightly, and Amy squeezed back.

To Jake's left, Charles observed this out of the corner of his eye. He tamped down the urge to clap his hands and squeal delightedly, but it was a near thing.

**bonus.**

> Amy -- Science sucks and projects are kinda the worst, but that stuff sucks less when I get to do it with you. HAGS --Jake
> 
> [Underneath is a crude sketch of their two backpacks leaning against each other.]

* * *

> Jake -- That G&T summer program looks AMAZING. I have to admit: I'm a little jealous. HAGS see you in the fall! --Amy

**Author's Note:**

>   * I based the school (and some of the elementary-era goings-on) on things I did in my youth, heyooo. Notably: although the real-life counterpart to the 99th Precinct is _probably_ [PS 321](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_321) (renamed PS 99 here), the amenities (playground) and curriculum are pulled from my suburban elementary school. The exception being the cafeteria; that I straight up pulled from _Hey Arnold!_ directly.
>   * I loved Hey Arnold like burning as a kid, by the way. That Christmas episode is still one of my faaaaves.
>   * DEAR Time == Drop Everything And Read Time. Originally from the Ramona books (iirc) but a lot of folks I know from all over had this in elementary school. For us, it was 30 minutes after recess where we had to read, but it couldn't count towards our weekly 100 Minutes required reading time.
>   * "Nena" is a Spanish endearment having a meaning similar to "sweetheart" and the nature of the comment changes in context, much like its English equivalent.
>   * The exhibits featured at the museum should correlate to what's currently at the American Museum of Natural History currently, given that I was there 12 days ago, hahaha.
>   * Title comes from my elementary school "spirit song" that we'd sing on the bus on the way to field trips. We were total weirdos. Ask me about our fourth-grade war games sometime.
>   * Yeah I don't know, either. This is probably **diaphenia** 's fault somehow. And **brella** , always brella.
> 



End file.
